


A Prelude in Petersburg

by MaplePaizley, thewhiskerydragon



Series: Children of Dust [3]
Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy, Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Canon Era, Child Abuse, Daemons, Engagement, Forced Marriage, Gen, Harm to Daemons, His Dark Materials Inspired, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22627003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaplePaizley/pseuds/MaplePaizley, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhiskerydragon/pseuds/thewhiskerydragon
Summary: “One must be cunning and wicked in this world.”Before the events of 'Of Dust & Dæmons', Prince Vasily Kuragin takes matters concerning the futures of his children into his own hands.
Series: Children of Dust [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1366756
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	A Prelude in Petersburg

**Author's Note:**

> We're finally back! We are so sorry for the delay. Life has been really hectic and crazy and stressful for the two of us lately, and while we write together every day, it's hard to have that good work-making productive energy (not to mention the 30 difficulties we had in posting this). We really appreciate your patience, and please know we love y'all so much, and we have so much planned for the future!

It was truly remarkable, Pierre thought, just how much good a death could bring about.

He supposed, perhaps a second after it occurred to him, that the sentiment bordered on blasphemous, or at the very least horrendously improper. There was a certain game to being an upright member of society, one Pierre had yet to learn the rules to. But he knew by now that people got terribly offended when you didn’t think exactly the way they did, and so he made an effort to keep most of his opinions to himself.

Strange as it felt to grieve a man he had never truly known, an obligation was an obligation. With the rest of Moscow, Pierre had donned his black clothes and followed the congregation as they trudged into church and murmured their prayers. Sitting in the pew and watching the coffin pass, its panes inlaid with onyx panthers fashioned after the late Kirill Vladimirovich’s dæmon, he had been struck by the utter absence of any feeling, save for Princess Hélène’s soft hand in his.

He couldn’t mourn his father, he had confided in her, whispered during the service when no one else might have heard. No father would have stirred up the sort of grief and anguish the passing of his dear beloved mother had. The princess had nodded then with a serene look of understanding and squeezed his fingers with that perfect delicate hand of hers, her glittering dark eyes, the smell of her perfume, and Pierre had flushed so hotly it was a wonder he hadn’t torn from his seat and run outside to throw himself into the snow.

“Elena, _ma petite_ ,” called Anna Pavlovna Scherer in her warbling French accent from the bank, “mind your parasol! We wouldn’t want you to freckle.”

At those words, Pierre startled back to the present. Anna’s voice could have raised the dead, if only to make them wish for death again.

Princess Hélène smiled graciously in Anna’s direction, as if to say, _oh, thank you, I had almost forgotten_ , and tilted her parasol up to shade her face from the Sun.

Pierre privately thought that her freckles she did have, dappled across the bridge of her nose, were quite lovely indeed. Without thought, his eyes traced them down her cheeks and nose, across the plane of her collarbone, until he was interrupted by the neckline of her dress. Just as quickly, he turned his gaze away and tried to find something along the shoreline to fix his attention to.

Tauride Garden was aflush with spring this morning. Several couples strolled about the lake or swanned about in rowboats. From the bank, a flock of children and their dæmons were engaged in a game of chase. Anna Pavlovna and Princess Hélène’s father sat together on a bench and watched from the shore, chatting amongst themselves every so often, their eyes never leaving the rowboat or its occupants.

Pierre felt a little pang of unease. It would be a private little excursion, they had said. A quiet moment alone, just the two of them, without Princess Hélène’s parents breathing down their necks. Perhaps expecting that to be true had been overly optimistic—Vasily Sergeyevich would hardly have been a responsible father if he were to allow his daughter out unchaperoned with a suitor.

His very lovely, very perplexing, very intriguing daughter.

Princess Hélène stroked her fingers through the fur at the nape of her dæmon’s neck. He was a beautiful snow leopard, silver-furred and dappled with grey rosettes, the sort of dæmon that spoke of controlled elegance and easy predator grace. A dæmon that perfectly suited a woman like Hélène.

If only Pierre were to be so lucky himself. Khione, unfortunate suffering creature that she was, was panting already in the late May heat. He tugged at his collar to loosen it and prayed the sweat hadn’t begun to show. He remembered, a little abortively, that Anna’s interruption had rattled their not-much-of-a-conversation, and the silence that had since settled over them had stretched on for far too long.

“You look beautiful today, Elena Vasilyevna,” he said, at a loss for anything else to say.

Princess Hélène smiled. Today she had dressed in a lovely pink dress that brought out the flush in her cheeks, maybe satin or silk—Pierre wouldn’t have known the difference anyhow. “You’d think we were strangers, Pyotr Kirillovich,” she said. “‘Hélène’ is fine.”

Pierre’s cheeks burned. “Then you must call me Pierre.”

What a lovely thing her smile was, he thought. The sort of smile that belonged in an oil painting or on a porcelain doll. _Of course I must_ , it said. _It’s the most perfectly obvious thing in the world_. 

Pierre felt his stomach churn, the way it did after he had had too much or not enough to eat. His hands dangled uselessly at his sides. He tried folding them in his lap, the way he had seen proper gentlemen do, and only felt more like a prat for it.

He picked up the oars again and paddled a little further out into the lake, where Anna Pavlovna’s unsolicited suggestions wouldn’t reach them. Hélène peeled a stray ringlet off the back of her neck and began to fan herself.

“You look beautiful,” he said without thought.

Hélène looked bemused. “You’ve already said that.”

Pierre felt his ears redden as the snow leopard huffed in amusement. “Oh. I suppose I have.”

Hélène smiled down at her dæmon, and he up at her, like sharing a secret little joke between them, and looked up at Pierre with a slight tilt to her head. He almost expected her to say something else, but she remained silent.

“Dreadfully warm today,” he offered instead.

“I quite like it,” she said.

“Very warm for May.”

“I suppose so.”

They lapsed into another uncomfortable silence. Another rowboat floated past, this one carrying a handsome couple with a matching pair of trumpeter swans for dæmons. Pierre felt a horrid flush of envy burn through him.

“It’s warmer in France,” he offered. “Especially by the coast.” 

“Yes,” she said. “My brothers told me so.”

He caught himself again staring after the swans, now swimming astride each, other arch-necked. “Beautifully suited for each other, aren’t they?” he said, unable to contain his jealousy.

“Hm?” said Hélène.

“That pair, over there.”

Hélène followed his gaze. “Quite a handsome couple,” she said. “Vera Ilyinichna is looking well.”

Pierre grimaced. How embarrassed she must have been to be seen with him. A beautiful young woman ought to have had a worthy companion, not a fat old bear with spectacles and a stutter.

“The dæmons, I meant,” he said.

Hélène didn’t quite seem to understand. “Oh. Well, I suppose so. Perfectly charming.”

“Do you ever wish yours was any different?”

The snow leopard tilted his head as he regarded Pierre, as though Pierre were a marmot or some game bird and not a man.

“I’m perfectly content with my Dahanian,” she said, that perfect smile never failing, the edge of it a little sharper. “I couldn’t imagine him as anything else.”

Pierre flushed. How stupid of him. What sort of a fool had he been to pose such a question? He might as well have asked her if she wished she were not so plump.

“I only meant,” he began. “What I mean to say is—you see, I sometimes wish mine had settled as something else.”

Pierre felt Khione exhale sharply against the back of his neck and sensed her displeasure, a sharp pinch of _how rich of you_. The briefest ghost of a frown crossed Hélène’s face. Had he offended her? Damnably impossible to say.

Pierre straightened his spectacles, his palm sweat-slick. “I always wanted something sort of noble before, like a fox, or maybe some sort of hound,” he continued. He dropped the oars to tug at his cravat. “Or a snow leopard. Christ, I would’ve loved to have had a snow leopard. I was so afraid she might settle a walrus or an elephant or something—”

“Pierre!” she gasped.

“It’s no matter for shame, of course, but you must understand how dreadfully inconvenient—”

“The _paddles_ , Pierre!” she said.

Pierre looked down in alarm. The oar had slipped from his lap into the water and begun to drift away from the boat.

“Oh,” he said thickly. “Oh, God.”

He leaned forwards to grab the handle as Khione did the same, and that was their fatal mistake. With a sudden lurch, the boat pitched to the side and sent the four of them tumbling into the lake.

The shock of cold knocked his mind loose for a moment. Pierre forgot that he was meant to breathe, then remembered that he couldn’t. He flailed about in panic and felt a few seams in his jacket and trousers give.

For a moment, he considered staying put and letting himself drown, but in an instant the burn of asphyxiation set in, terror with it. He kicked his legs, heavy and sodden as they were. One of his shoes detached itself from his foot as he shot to the surface. Pierre gasped on the inhale and swallowed up a mouthful of lakewater.

Khione was already paddling towards the shore, tugging him along with her. Several meters away, Hélène’s head bobbed to the surface, sputtering for air and shrieking for her father. Her dæmon followed a second later, mewling furiously like a housecat tossed into water, and tried to clamber into her arms.

Pierre coughed and wheezed as he hauled himself back onto dry land on his hands and knees. Every inch of him was freezing. His socks squelched uncomfortably as he tried to stand. He grabbed onto a hank of Khione’s fur for balance. The sensation was much like being drunk, but without any of the pleasant giddiness he was used to. The earth tilted back and forth beneath his feet. He raised a hand to his face to feel for his spectacles, only to realize that they were nowhere to be found.

“Oh, hellfire,” he muttered.

At that moment, Khione nudged him in the shoulder. His spectacles dangled from her enormous mouth. Pierre prised them out and examined them closely. One arm was bent askew, the screw that held it in place threatening to come undone.

“You silly old bear,” he groused, wiping the lenses on his waistcoat, which didn’t help at all. “You’ve ruined them.”

Khione shrank back with her ears flat against her head. “I didn’t mean to!”

Further ahead, he saw a huddle of dark masses and heard a strange whining cry. Raising his spectacles to his eyes, he realized that the blurry shapes were none other than Anna Pavlovna, Prince Vasily, and Hélène. A sodden feline creature with its fur all matted down stood shivering behind the young princess. Vaguely, Pierre recognized that it was the source of the dreadful noise. A heartbeat later, he realized it was Hélène’s dæmon.

“Oh, you poor dear,” Anna Pavlovna said, tugging at Hélène’s sleeve with only her fingertips. “Such a shame.”

Vasily clucked and draped his coat over Hélène’s shoulders. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. Pierre saw her frilly little paper parasol, now sodden and quite sad-looking, bobbing in the water.

Vasily took her face in his hands and gently tilted her chin up. “I don’t see any scrapes or bruises,” he said. “Nothing hurts?”

Hélène shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a choked cough-like sound. Out came a mouthful of lakewater, all down the front of Vasily’s waistcoat. Vasily recoiled with a look of abject disgust.

“Oh my,” Anna Pavlovna said mildly.

“It’s nothing, _chérie_ ,” said Vasily. “All that matters is that you’re safe.”

Hélène nodded. The snow leopard drawled out a pathetic high whine, looking rather like a waterlogged housecat, and slunk behind the sodden mass of Hélène’s skirt. A growing wet patch crept down the back of her borrowed coat, under which her loose hair had been tucked. 

“Princess,” Pierre began, meaning to be helpful, “perhaps if you were to tie up your hair—”

The lioness, Vasily’s dæmon, turned her cold yellow eyes on Khione, a cold and predatory look about them. Recognizing that his input was currently unwanted, Pierre wiped his muddy palms on his trousers, leaving clods of grass on the fabric, and stepped aside.

His eye was drawn by a flash of orange. Anna Pavlovna’s butterfly-dæmon was perched on a nearby bench, watching, or hoping to eavesdrop. The butterfly, realizing he had been seen, flitted back to Anna and perched at her shoulder. Pierre narrowed his eyes.

“Well,” Anna tittered with a saccharine smile. “I suppose this is what’s to be expected when you put the boat before the bear.”

Pierre flushed. The thought of flinging himself back into the pond was undeniably tempting.

“Hélène,” he began, then, realizing she couldn’t see, peered around Vasily’s shoulder. No better luck there. “Hélène,” he said again. “I wanted—I was hoping I might—”

“My poor darling,” Vasily said to Hélène as he pulled a reed out of her hair. “And you’re certain you’re not hurt?”

“No, Papa.”

“Sir, if I could just—”

“Then there’s no need to be so upset, is there?”

“Please, Vasily—” said Pierre.

Vasily whirled around at the sound of his Christian name, his eyes flat and cold.

“Vasily Sergeyevich,” Pierre amended weakly.

Vasily pressed his lips together with a long-suffering sigh, the sort you would use on a houseguest dangerously close to overstaying their welcome. “Yes, Pierre?”

“I just wanted to apologize, sir,” Pierre began.

“It’s no matter,” said Vasily. “Isn’t that right, Elena?”

Hélène nodded and kept her eyes on the ground. Pierre’s heart ached. So she had thought ahead, then. She had already realized that after this humiliating episode, he would never be allowed to court her. Whatever happiness their futures might have held, it was over for them now. A good obedient daughter like her wouldn’t dare contradict the will of her father.

“Elena and her brothers used to go swimming in the lake by the dacha,” Vasily continued, in an attempt at politeness he clearly didn’t seem to think Pierre deserved. “We always thought her Dahanian would settle as a fish. We’ve always said that, haven’t we, darling?”

Hélène said nothing. Behind her, the snow leopard shivered with another distraught yowl. She touched his head and murmured for him to be quiet.

“We ought to get you inside,” Anna said. “We don’t want you catching a chill.”

“No, no, I’m perfectly fine!” said Pierre, raising a hand.

“I was speaking to Elena, dear.”

He could throw himself in the lake, Pierre thought. Or in front of a carriage. It would have been less painful than this.

Vasily frowned and felt Hélène’s forehead with the back of his hand. “Madame Scherer is quite right,” he said. “I don’t want you to come down with a fever, _chérie_. Come along now, we ought to get you home.”

He hailed a passing carriage and helped his daughter in. Her skirt was still sodden, her hair tangled with duckweed and cattails.

Anna clucked. “And you looked so lovely this morning! Such a shame.”

“We’ll run you a hot bath as soon as we’re home, darling,” said Vasily. “And you ought to rest after all of this excitement.”

Hélène nodded silently. Pierre tried to catch her eye in the carriage window, but she had turned her head away.

A painful, humiliated lump caught in his throat. His head hummed so loudly that for a minute he didn’t realize that Vasily was looking at him expectantly.

“Aren’t you coming back to the house, Pyotr Kirillovich?” the prince said, evidently having repeated himself 

Pierre startled at once. “Oh!” he said, and considered this for a minute.

He couldn’t go back to the house, he decided, even if Vasily had elected not to throw him out. He would rather have packed his things and moved to Siberia, or the gutter at the end of the street where they lived.

“Go ahead without me,” he said. “I think I ought to go for a stroll. Clear my head.” His voice grew feeble. “After all of this.”

Vasily sighed tiredly and took his seat next to Hélène. Anna Pavlovna followed them a moment later, trailing behind her a strange distant look in Pierre’s direction, as though he were a particularly upsetting tea stain on one of her nice oriental rugs.

He hardly bothered to watch as the carriage took off and carried them away. If the ground had opened up right there and swallowed him entirely, he couldn’t have been any more miserable. 

Pierre shivered against the wind. He shrugged off his wet jacket and folded its sopping mass in the crook of his elbow. Beneath his waistcoat, the water had stuck his shirtsleeves to his skin.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Khione hissed.

“Cold,” he said through chattering teeth.

“That doesn’t mean you can strip in the middle of the park!”

Pierre, despite the chill, felt his face grow hot. “I’m such a damned idiot,” he said to himself. He shed his soaked waistcoat and wrung it between his hands like laundry through a mangle. “What was I thinking?”

“Pierre,” hissed Khione, “you look like a fool. And you’re making people stare.”

Pierre rounded on her, furious and wounded. Humiliation was only made easier to bear by anger. It made him reckless and loud, made him say things he meant but never wished to be heard.

“This is your fault, you know,” he said.

He felt a sharp pang of hurt that was not his own run through him. Khione shifted back, avoiding his eyes. “Perhaps it’s for the better.”

“How the hell is this for the better?”

“Her dæmon frightens me.”

“For Christ’s sake, you stupid bear,” Pierre howled, “he’s a quarter of your size!”

Khione shrank back and narrowed her eyes, the way she might against a strong wind or rainstorm. Her lip curled up in disgust.

“You spit when you yell,” she said finally.

Pierre knew he was a strong man, stronger than any other he had met. He could have lifted Khione over his head had he so wished, and presently, he wished to take her and throw her back into the lake if only it wouldn’t have drenched him again. 

For the sake of his own dignity, he turned away from her and counted to ten to slow his beating heart. There was a horrible tightness in his chest that made it hurt to breathe. Tears sprang to his eyes.

“Pierre,” said Khione, a little childishly, “do you think I’m frightening?”

“What’s that, now?”

“He wouldn’t look at me.”

“Who?”

“Her dæmon.”

“Oh, for the love of God, who’d want to?” Pierre snapped.

“ _She_ didn’t even look at you twice until you came into money.”

“What, do you think her father would have let her without it?”

“I thought that shouldn’t matter,” Khione said quietly.

“Of course it does,” he sighed. “She’s a proper lady, and I’m…” He let his waistcoat drop to the ground. “Well, who else would want me?” 

Khione was silent for a long while. “I still think it’s for the better.”

Pierre felt his heart pounding in his ears, an angry, senseless staccato. “It’s still your fault,” he said, his temper rising with the volume of his voice. “If you weren’t so damned big and clumsy, none of this would have happened.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Fat load of good that does me now.”

Khione’s ears folded down against the top of her skull. Pierre looked down and wrung his hands together, picking at his cuticles.

“I have to end things,” he said. “For her sake. It’s the right thing to do. It must be.”

Pierre repeated this to himself several times until it seemed to lose all meaning. Khione remained silent. There was no doubt in his mind she was stewing in her thoughts, but he didn’t care to know what they were. It would only have made him feel worse.

“I suppose we should head back,” he sighed.

Neither of them moved to go. A lump rose in Pierre’s throat as he remembered Prince Vasily’s disdainful expression and the way Hélène had turned away from him. He sniffled and wiped his eyes, then felt ashamed for it. Crying like a child. Crying over nothing. You couldn’t lose what you had never had, he told himself. So why did this hurt so very badly?

Khione whined in the back of her throat and bumped her head against his shoulder, like she might have done in their childhood.

“No, no,” he said, pushing her away. “None of that. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Then he set off for the path, as many steps ahead of her as he could manage, wishing for nothing more than to be alone for once.

* * *

In Petersburg, appearance was everything. Pierre, newly legitimate, was hopelessly out of his depth in the salons of Petersburg’s elite. If the man was fumbling enough to dump the heiress of one of the most respected families in Russia in the lake of Tauride Garden, he didn’t belong in the zoo, much less in high society.

Hélène had washed and dressed since returning home, but the glow of humiliation still flushed her cheeks. Standing before the mirror, she combed her fingers through her hair and straightened the collar of her robe. Pierre hadn’t shown up to dinner that evening. Of all the houseguests her father had entertained, save perhaps for Ippolit, she had never thought he might tolerate one so maddening this long. It was amazing, where and what enough money could get you.

The Bezukhov fortune had been an undeniable draw from the beginning. To be the richest woman in all Russia, with all the jewels and silks, glittering chandeliers and enormous houses that entailed, to have all the material delights life had to offer—well, you didn’t have to be a pauper to understand the appeal.

She bit her lip, absently toying with a ringlet. Her beauty was wasted on a man like Pierre. Shy virgin that he was, he would fall for anyone who gave him the time of day, even if they were a horse-faced bore like Julie Karagina. Little wonder he had flushed like a schoolboy when his eyes had wandered down the front of her dress.

She doubted that would bode well for their wedding night.

It would be dark, she supposed. But all the money in the world couldn’t fix that unfortunate lisp or those unsteady hands. She had danced with the Tsar, for Christ’s sake. Surely she could hope for a better match than a common bastard with deep pockets.

And after today. God help her, Hélène thought. There was no rectifying _that_.

It was all damnably unfair, she mused bitterly. Someone like her deserved a prince, a man of status and refined tastes. Anatole would have married a kitchen maid if she had a pretty enough smile. But he was short-sighted, bored easily. Not like her at all.

“Prince Kuragin has asked for you, Princess,” came a soft voice from the other side of the room.

Hélène turned to the doorway, irritated to have been pulled from her thoughts. Dunia, who Hélène had already reduced to tears once that day for mislaying a pearl earring, quailed. If she weren’t such a dull fearful little creature, Hélène might have had it in her to loathe her.

“For Heaven’s sake, _where_ , Dunia?” she snapped. “Am I meant to wander the house until I find him?”

The maid lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Princess,” she whispered. “He’s asked for you in the study.”

“There’s a girl,” said Hélène. She turned back to the mirror. “Help me fix my hair.”

There was a strange sort of comfort in the whole ritual of doing herself up. Nothing mattered here quite so much as what was on the surface—a perfect smile, fashionable clothes, perfectly coiffed hair and glittering jewels, all of it tailored to a purpose.

Dunia hastily went to work setting Hélène’s curls in place, picking up the comb with its gilt handle. Hélène frowned as she examined her reflection in the mirror.

“Dunia,” she said. “You’ve done my part crooked.”

Dunia murmured an apology and brushed Hélène’s hair back. The comb snagged on a knot with a sharp clumsy tug. Dahanian gave a warning snap, and Dunia’s little sparrow-dæmon dæmon took flight to hide in her hair. The girl flinched and set the comb down, almost as if it had burned her.

Hélène rolled her eyes and shooed Dunia out of the room. She could finish this much herself. She had to. Ippolit had landed himself in hot water more times than she cared to remember, appearing at breakfast with his shirt buttoned up wrong or his cravat untucked, or wearing two clashing colors. Anatole had fared better only by virtue of wearing such wardrobe malfunctions with an odd sort of grace. As for Hélène herself, she had always taken a certain pride in her appearance.

Tying the sash of her dressing gown into a loose knot, she made her way to Vasily’s wing of the house. His office was a handsomely-furnished room, forbidden to them as children, paneled with mahogany and carpeted from wall to wall. Vasily sat at his desk dressed in his mink-trimmed housecoat, a pipe in his hand. Asteria lay at his feet, grooming her fur. Hélène faintly smelled smokeleaf and drying ink.

“Ah, Lena,” he said. “Come join us, my darling. We have important matters to discuss.”

Hélène trailed in and closed the door behind her. When she saw Pierre sitting before the desk, she drew the sash a little tighter. His dæmon turned her head away as if in shame of seeing Hélène in this state—slipper-clad, her hair loose and still damp from the bath.

“Good evening, Princess Hélène,” Pierre mumbled. Embarrassment colored his voice. 

Hélène smiled, albeit somewhat stiffly. “Good evening, Count Bezukhov,” she echoed.

Vasily held out his hand and Hélène silently took it. At their feet, Asteria circled in close to nuzzle Dahanian’s cheek.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” Pierre began bashfully. “I just felt that I had to apologize for this afternoon.”

“No apologies needed, Pyotr Kirillovich,” said Vasily. He looked to Hélène, still hovering at his side. “Sit, my dear, please sit,” he said, gesturing towards the seat next to Pierre, who blushed and immediately turned away from her.

“Perhaps, sir, if we might instead continue this conversation in private,” Pierre began.

Vasily waved him down with his pipe-hand. The pipe trailed little curls of smoke in its wake. “Nonsense. I’m sure whatever it is you mean to say would only help to set Elena’s mind at ease. She was so terribly distraught to think the unfortunate episode today had put you off.”

Pierre blushed and, for the first time that night, looked her properly in the eye. “I’m sorry to have caused you such distress, Princess.”

Hélène fought the urge to grimace, even as she pasted on a saccharine smile. What a performance this was, father and daughter in tandem. A troupe of actors for a family.

“It’s no matter at all,” Vasily said. “Let us put this unfortunate accident behind us. That’s the way life ought to be lived, eh?”

Pierre exhaled. He ran a nervous hand through his hair, then straightened his spectacles, which had started to slide down his nose. “Thank you, sir.”

“Besides, I know perfectly well why you’re here, Pierre.”

Pierre’s shoulders deflated with a shuddery sigh. “I’m very glad, sir.”

“You’ve come to ask for my blessing. You’re ready to propose to my Elena.”

Hélène went cold at once.

Pierre made a terribly undignified choking sound. His stupid bear-dæmon fell back onto her haunches so heavily it sent a vase rattling on the mantel.

“Papa,” Hélène began.

Vasily shot her a stern look and she fell silent.

Pierre rather resembled a fish, with his mouth and eyes wide open. Coward, Hélène thought, and loathed him even more fiercely. The pathetic cringing coward, allowing himself to be bullied like a little child. 

“And of course Elena is thrilled by your proposal,” Vasily continued, taking Hélène’s hands once again. A silvery undercurrent slithered into his voice. “Isn’t that right, my darling?”

Hélène couldn’t be bothered to muster a favorable reaction. For the barest fraction of a second, she felt his nails dig into her palm. A warning. With great effort and still more reluctance, she forced her mouth to smile. The feel of it was utterly wooden. 

Vasily’s own smile was every bit as cold as it was perfect. “Your mother will be overjoyed to hear,” he said. He turned to Pierre with a conspiratorial air, like speaking to one of the other old men at the salon. “You know how women are. First marriage in the family and all.”

Pierre began to blubber something that sounded like an apology. She had never imagined he might sink to an even lower estimation in her eyes.

Vasily poured a generous round of tokay into two glasses. “To our family,” he said, passing one to Pierre. “May you and Elena always find joy in each other.”

Pierre’s hand shook so violently the glass threatened to spill. “Th-th-thank you, s-sir,” he stammered.

Hélène’s smile remained in place as though carved onto her mouth. She bit down on her tongue until she tasted blood.

“We’ll plan for later this summer,” Vasily said. “I think late July should be perfect.”

“Oh,” said Pierre, sounding faint. He stumbled a little as he sank back into his chair, one hand at his temple. “So soon.”

Vasily chuckled. “I know how anxious young lovebirds are to run down the aisle. We won’t have you waiting terribly long.”

He took Hélène’s hand again, Pierre’s in the other, with all the doting air of the benevolent patriarch he so wished everyone to see him as, and had them stand together. His skin was cold as ice. Hélène told herself not to flinch away.

“Isn’t this perfect?” he said. “And just to think all but a few months ago you were all but strangers.”

He moved to bring their hands together, Hélène and Pierre, and Hélène felt a shudder of revulsion and dread go through her. At her side, Dahanian bristled, every muscle in him tense.

But Pierre shuddered back first and pulled his hand out of Vasily’s grasp. For the briefest of moments, a flicker of displeasure crossed Vasily’s face, but that smile was back so quickly Hélène could have almost convinced herself she had imagined it.

“The children will be absolutely darling. We’ll hope they take after their mother, of course.”

Pierre blanched and backed away. “I should excuse myself,” he said, the lisp slipping back into his voice. “I—I really ought to…I think I should lie down. I’ll be off now, if it wouldn’t terribly displease you, sir, I—”

Vasily released Hélène’s hand to clap Pierre on the shoulder. Pierre flinched harder than a man of his size should have.

“Of course not, my boy. Go, get some rest.”

Pierre nodded, very pale and ill-looking, and wrung his hands together. As he turned to leave, his dignity and any respect Hélène may once have held for him now thoroughly in tatters, Vasily called after him, “Send your accountant over in the morning.”

Pierre turned on his heel. “Sir?”

Vasily smiled, like a snake might to its prey before devouring it. “We’ll have to sort out the dowry, of course. And the bill for my coat.”

Pierre nodded with all the dumb vacancy of a puppet on a string. There was a confused look about his eyes. The bear whined softly from the doorway and nudged his hand. Pierre tripped over the door frame as he exited.

Vasily chuckled and reached for the tokay again. “That man,” he mused, topping off his glass. “I’ve never met someone so utterly gormless in my life.”

At that, Asteria rose to her feet and stretched herself out along the carpet.

He leaned back in his seat. “To the family Kuragin. And our very prosperous futures.” 

Dahanian stared emptily at the door, his tail swishing back and forth. Hélène dug her nails into her palm.

“And to the future Countess Bezukhova, eh?” She felt Vasily press a glass into her unwilling hand. “You ought to be very proud of yourself, my darling. You’ve performed admirably, just as I knew you would.”

Hélène did not smile. It had died on her lips the moment Pierre left. She would never smile again as long as she lived, not for him or anyone else. There was no emotion left at all in her, only empty disbelief and a heart rattling too loud in her chest.

“Have I said something to offend you, Elena?” asked Vasily.

The thin veneer of paternal warmth over him had worn thin. There was that family dangerous catch in his voice, the one that made her sit up straighter. 

“No, Papa,” she said quickly.

“Then what,” he said, leaning forwards, “is the miserable look on your face for?”

Panic gripped her. Trembling cold, through her chest and limbs. She felt her heart pounding in her ears. Dahanian shrank back with his tail tucked between his legs.

She pressed a hand to her face. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she whispered.

“I had expected you to be pleased,” he said coldly. “This is an excellent match. I’ve just secured your future.”

“I know,” she said.

“You’re to be the wife of the wealthiest man in Russia.”

“But I don’t love him, Papa,” she said. “I don’t even know him.”

Vasily raised his glass to his lips and took a long sip of tokay. “Your mother and I never concerned ourselves with such nonsense before we were wed,” he said calmly, setting the glass back on the desk. “Passion is a foolish, fleeting fancy that leads women to their ruin. Security is the foundation one ought to build a marriage upon.”

“There must be someone else,” she said. “Stepan Stepanovich. Or Prince Lopuhin. Andrei Nikolayevich.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t see you throw this away.”

“Please,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Please, Papa, I swear I’ll never be happy again if I marry him.”

Vasily sighed and patted her hand. “It is the duty of the old to ensure their children’s security. And it is the duty of the young to scorn the anxiety of the old. But in time you’ll come to understand.”

“Surely there’s another way,” she pressed.

“No one else could give you the advantages that Pierre will, Lelya,” he said. “They’ll be speaking of your marriage all the way to Warsaw. Besides, the matter is already concluded.”

“You could call it off.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Then I’ll refuse him myself.”

Hélène regretted her quiet moment of defiance just as suddenly as the urge had gripped her. There was a moment of sickening, terrifying silence. She registered shock on her father’s face, unfamiliar as it was.

Then Vasily rose from his seat with a cold impassive look that she recognized but had never imagined she might see. He had never treated her the way he treated her brothers, because she had never disobeyed him like they had. How unfathomably terrible it was to have all that hostile attention directed on you at once. She closed her eyes, readying herself for the sting of a palm against her cheek.

It never did come. 

Instead, Asteria leapt upon Dahanian with her teeth bared against his throat. Dahanian cried out. Hélène felt an awful crushing sensation leap upon her, as though it were her Asteria had pinned and not Dahanian, and his fear, sharp as her own. A wild shriek of terror tore from her mouth.

“I won’t tolerate this disobedience,” said Vasily.

Hélène fell to her knees without meaning or wanting to. She and her brothers had engaged in this sort of warfare before as children—everyone had, their dæmons shifting and wrestling like wild animals, but always to end in apologetic tears and laughter. Never this, never this cold adult rage. The pain was alien and awful.

“I thought better of you, Elena,” Vasily said coolly. “This sort of petulance I expected from your younger brother.”

A confused cry of anguish lurched up into her throat. “Papa, please,” she whimpered.

“You will marry Pierre. Do I make myself clear?”

Asteria snarled at Dahanian, digging her claws in deeper. Hélène sobbed, a horrible choked sound, and wrapped her arms around herself.

“I expect an answer when I address you, Elena,” he said.

Dahanian mewled desperately and thrashed with all his might, but Asteria only bore down harder.

“You’re hurting us!” Hélène cried.

“Answer me.”

“I’m sorry! I’ll do it, anything, please, just stop!”

“Asteria,” Vasily said.

The lioness stood back at last, and slunk back to Vasily’s side, her gaze fixed on Dahanian, twin looks of contempt. Hélène shivered, little sobs still wracking her shoulders. How had she not seen before just how very cold their eyes could be?

“I trust that this foolishness is behind us now,” he said.

She nodded, not daring to look away. 

Vasily turned back to his papers. “Excuse yourself,” he said in a cold, clipped tone. “I don’t wish to discuss this any further.”

Hélène bowed her head and ducked out of the room, Dahanian at her heels, the two of them gasping and sniffling, then tore down the hall to her room. She flung the door shut and sank to the floor. 

Dahanian ran into her open waiting arms without hesitation. She pressed her forehead to his, running her hands over his shoulders, and felt him purr in response, a deep rumble that was as familiar as her own breath. How comforting it was to know your fear was shared and didn’t need to be expressed in words, that childlike language that all people shared with their dæmons.

Dahanian trembled. “I thought she might…”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Danochka, I never meant—”

He began to weep too, great wet mewling sobs that shuddered through them both, and Hélène stroked his cheeks, combing her fingers through his thick soft fur.

“I’m sorry, Lena. I wish I was a lion,” he whimpered. “I could keep you safe if I was a lion.”

“There was nothing we could have done.”

“If I was bigger, I wouldn’t have been too afraid to fight,” he said. “It’s my job to keep you safe. You need me to keep you safe.”

Hélène sat back and looked at him again, properly, for the first time that day. Her own weakness stared back at her. 

“You’d be a coward at any size,” she snarled. “You didn’t even _try_ to fight her off.” 

Dahanian recoiled. “This isn’t my fault.”

“I suppose you think it’s mine then?”

“You could have said no.”

“Maybe I will next time,” she spat. “And let Asteria rip your throat out. Christ knows it would save us both a lot of trouble.”

Dahanian snarled back at her, baring his teeth, and stalked away until those first telltale pains of separation set in. Hélène didn’t care. They stood like this, the two of them, as far apart as they could, not even sparing a glance at each other.

From the corridor they heard drunken footsteps and laughter. Anatole sauntered through the doorway, his hair all askew and his shirt collar open down the front. Danali was burrowed in his hair, all but invisible save for two black beady eyes and the little charcoal tip of her tail. Hélène smelled either women’s perfume or men’s cologne. Quite possibly both.

“Good evening, sweet sister,” he slurred.

Hélène wrinkled her nose. “You’re drunk, Anatole.”

“You’ve been very mean to our Dunia, Lenochka. The poor thing was so distressed she ran to me for comfort.”

She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to leap into bed with the help?” 

“Honestly, Lena, what am I to do when she throws herself at me?” He hiccupped and slumped against the doorframe. “Far be it for me to deny her a shoulder to cry on.”

“Pathetic. The both of you.”

His smile took on a decidedly malicious edge. “She told me all about your little adventure in the park today, you know. Don’t look so displeased! I’ve always thought an afternoon swim was very bracing.”

“I’ll dismiss her myself,” Hélène muttered. “Stupid little cow.”

Anatole laughed and took her by the hands. “Oh, you mustn’t be so cruel, Lena! She’s the only pretty maid left.”

Hélène turned away from him and sat herself down at her bureau. She had half a mind to shout at him to leave, but before she could, he had flung himself across her bed and stretched his arms over his head.

“I ought to write Lito to tell him,” he said, swinging his legs idly. “We’ll hear him laughing all the way across Europe.”

“I hate you,” she spat. “You’re a horrid beast.”

“God, Lena, as if the old bear wasn’t awful enough! The next time Papa sics me on some boring socialite, I’ll just dump her in a lake!”

Anatole laughed harder. Hélène seized a compact from her desktop and threw it at his face. It shattered against the headboard instead.

“It’s not funny!” she howled.

“Seven years’ bad luck,” he said.

“Go to hell.”

Anatole rolled over onto his side. “You’re certainly in a mood tonight, aren’t you?”

“You don’t get to laugh at this,” she snarled. “You’re not the one who’s being sold off like a broodmare.” 

He looked confused in a dull slow sort of way. Idiot, Hélène thought. “What’s that, now?”

“I’m engaged,” she said flatly. “Pierre and I are to marry later this summer.” 

A strange unfamiliar look crossed Anatole’s face. Pity. It suited him as uncomfortably as laughter suited their father.

Danali leapt onto the bureau and looked up at Hélène, her head tilted. “But you hardly know the man.”

Hélène laughed caustically. “Papa doesn’t seem to think that’s an issue.”

Danali wilted back and skittered back into Anatole’s pocket. “You don’t suppose there’s any way out of it?” he asked.

“You know how Papa gets.”

Anatole seemed to take his time grasping her words. He had never been quick on the uptake, much less with unfortunate matters of consequence and obligation. Hélène sometimes wondered if he had ever bothered to notice them at all. 

“Damned shame, that,” he said eventually.

“I wish Pierre’d had the decency to drown,” she muttered. 

“I always thought dear Petrushka was a landlubber.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Ah well, misery loves company, eh?”

“You hardly seem miserable, dear brother,” she said. The endearment, for the first time, tasted bitter in her mouth.

“I try not to look it, Lena. It’s not good for one’s health. But we must face the morning sometime, eh?” He turned to her again, his eyes a little dazed and more darkly-lined than usual. “I would know. I’m having one last hurrah before I go off to the front.”

Hélène frowned. “What?”

“I’m leaving within the month. Papa told me this morning. I suppose I forgot to tell you, what with all the excitement.”

Dahanian, at last, turned his head. He carried little emotion in his face, but Hélène recognized his anxiety in the way his tail flicked along the carpet.

Punishment, no doubt, she thought bitterly. For as much as she had played along in Vasily’s schemes, Anatole had sabotaged and weaseled his way out of every possible match with every eligible socialite in Petersburg one by one. The latest, a middling princess almost five years his senior, had prattled on in her awful droning voice about how dreary her boring little life was, until he had spilled wine down the front of her dress. One infraction too many, and now this.

Whatever obedience and discipline Vasily had been unable to beat into him, the Army would, and quickly. But boys like Anatole were sent to adjutants’ offices, not the battlefield. He would be safe. He would come home.

“You’ll miss the wedding,” she said emptily.

Anatole laughed again, but now there was a sharp, painful edge to it. “And what a shame that’ll be,” he said. “I’ll be sure to keep you in mind on your happy day while I’m off at the front.”

“Oh, you’d love nothing more than that, wouldn’t you? Handsome men in uniform, no Papa looming over you like a goddamned vulture. I’m the one who has to stay and suffer while you’re off drinking with your comrades.”

Anatole pushed himself upright. “Suppose you’re right,” he said coldly. “I’d rather be there than in Pierre’s bed.”

Then Hélène did something she had never expected of herself. Incensed, she stood and hit him across the face, hard. Danali hissed at the slap and snapped at her fingers.

Anatole raised a hand to his face. His eyes closed, he inhaled slowly through his nose. The shape of her palm glowed an accusatory pink. “You could do with some work on your swing, Lelya,” he said, without any inflection at all. “You’d get more power if you moved from your waist.”

“I won’t miss you when you’re in Poland. You can stay there for all I care.”

“Funny,” he sneered. “Papa said the same thing.”

Without another word, he got to his feet and stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Hélène felt a great pit of hollowness deepen inside her. She had thought this would make her feel better, but there was no satisfaction in it at all.

Her palm ringing, she sat down at her bureau. She wanted a drink. Very badly, in fact. Sobriety was cruel in the face of unkind truths such as this: she would marry Pierre, and there was nothing she could do to change that. Anatole was leaving, and he was furious with her.

Miserable as Pierre had looked, you would’ve thought Vasily was twisting _his_ arm into this. With scorn, she remembered how he had downed that tokay like a starving man gulping after air. Pliable. A weakness begging to be exploited.

Hélène made herself smile, cruel and cold and perfectly in control, just like her father. There it all was, she thought. Her answer. She would never as long as she lived have any ounce of care for Pierre or Vasily or any other man. And she would crush them all under her heel, and make them pay for the indignity they had made her suffer.

She straightened her back, the way her father had taught her. She would be the Countess Bezukhova, the richest woman in all Russia, the queen of society. She would have the Tsar grace her soirées and salons. She would be adored and revered. Women would envy and fear her, and men would worship her.

There were worse ways to be.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> We LOVE kudos and comments!! They fuel us!! pls consider leaving one (or both, we aren't picky)!


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